22 ms·
America doesn't know tofu
- bitlax 3y ago[flagged]
- PoignardAzur 3y agoThat's such a weird question. You're reacting to the headline as if it was the central part of the article and not, well, a hook for the article's story about China's rich tofu culture and the author's efforts to learn how to prepare it.
- bitlax 3y agoWow, such a weird headline!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- PoignardAzur 3y agoIf anyone else's wondering whether the author followed up on importing tofu in the US, here's what his webpage says: > It’s nice to meet you. I’m working on promoting Chinese tofus in the States. If you’re not familiar, China has over 20 types of tofus. They taste nothing like conventional white blocks. Some are bready. Others taste like aged cheese. Some bake up like pastry crust. Others melt. > I’m writing a book to teach western cooks how use these ingredients beyond Chinese cooking. I’m also building a team to import and sell these ingredients to western supermarkets. If you’re excited about this project, let me know here. I’d love to find ways to collab. http://georgestiffman.com/ http://georgestiffman.com/
- ben_w 3y agoThere's tofu that melts? Huh. That (I thought) it didn't melt was the one thing holding it back from being a true vegan cheese[0] alternative to me. [0] Process for making {cheese, tofu}: take {milk, soy milk}, add some acid to make the proteins coagulate, then draw the rest of the owl to get your sliceable high-protein block of controllable firmness and flavour.
- autarch 3y agoThere are vegan cheese products that melt. I like Violife brand cheeses when I want something melty.
- ben_w 3y agoI'm aware of Violife; the trouble is, while it melts, it has zero protein — from the ingredients it's basically solidified flavoured coconut oil: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/302277589 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/302277589 To me, a true vegan cheese alternative has to tick all the boxes that cheese ticks at the same time, not a separate product for each box you want to tick.
- Sirizarry 3y agoIm sorry but you seriously worry about the protein content of your cheese? There are plenty other protein rich foods
- harimau777 3y agoIf it has calories, then someone who cares about bodybuilding or athletic performance is going to care about its macronutrients.
- brnt 3y agoVegans need to worry about this, because most don't want to eat piles of beans with every meal. I love beans, but I love other foods too!
- PretzelPirate 3y agoVegans don't need to worry about the protein content of vegan cheese. Protein is widely available in vegan food and you don't need to eat a pile of beans to get it.
- 3y ago
- NooneAtAll3 3y ago> They taste nothing like conventional white blocks tofu isn't green?? welp, my life is a lie
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoPumpkin seed tofu is green
- Kon-Peki 3y ago> I’m also building a team to import and sell these ingredients to western supermarkets Why? American farmers are great at growing soybeans. They even grow varieties that are exported to Asia specifically for making tofu. There's an old story about when Honda first set up factories in Ohio, they still shipped the engines from Japan. After a while they got tired of returning the containers back empty, and went in search of something they could fill them with. In the end, they hired local farmers to grow specific soybeans that were desired in Japan - every engine crate from then on returned to Japan with those beans inside.
- yorwba 3y agoSomeone still needs to turn those American soybeans into tofu. Either you import the tofu or you import the tofu maker. Just as with those Honda engines, it's easier to start by rerouting some of the output of an existing factory than having to stand up a whole new factory from scratch. It might very well turn out that for most of these regional specialty tofus, there's not enough demand in America to make local production economically viable, but there could still be a niche for a specialized tofu importer that can provide small quantities of many different varieties.
- throwaway2037 3y agoIronically, in Japan, most cheaper tofu (and natto) is made from Canadian soybeans.
- solardev 3y agoFWIW, there are a number of decent US-based tofu manufacturers too. Just the ones I'm familiar with: Asian style: - (Seattle) Northwest Tofu: https://maps.app.goo.gl/omGVAsunK79BH1SYA https://maps.app.goo.gl/omGVAsunK79BH1SYA - (Cupertino, CA) Sogo Tofu: https://sogotofu.business.site/ https://sogotofu.business.site/ American/fusion style: - (Arcata, CA) Tofu Shop: https://www.tofushop.com/ https://www.tofushop.com/ - (Chicago) Phoenix Bean: https://www.phoenixbean.com/products.html https://www.phoenixbean.com/products.html - (Nationwide) Nasoya: https://www.nasoya.com/about-us/ https://www.nasoya.com/about-us/ - (Nationwide) Wildwood: https://wildwoodfoods.com/ https://wildwoodfoods.com/ - (Nationwide) Hodo: https://www.hodofoods.com/ https://www.hodofoods.com/ Wholesale distributors of fake meats: - (San Jose, CA) Ecovegan: https://ecovegan.com/ https://ecovegan.com/ - (NYC) Lily's Vegan (former May Wah): https://www.lilysveganpantry.com https://www.lilysveganpantry.com -------- IMO Sogo Tofu and Northwest are worth going out of your way to try out if you're ever in the Bay Area or Seattle. They're just wonderful.
- lgxz 3y agoWell, I can’t believe that he spent 10000 Yuan to learn how to make Tofu.
- pprotas 3y agoFascinating article brimming with the author’s passion for the humble tofu. It left me with a desire to book a ticket to China and try out all the vegetarian foods described in the article! Especially those tofu dumplings of love. I have a great love for tofu as well, ever since I dropped meat a few years ago. I am glad to see that there are people like George Stiffman that seem to evangelize non-meat dishes and ingredients like tofu.
- throwaway2037 3y agoI would say that China's most famous tofu dish (domestically and internationally) is mapo tofu 麻婆豆腐. It is not (normally) vegetarian.
- throwaway2037 3y agoLOL. "Humble"? To me, chicken breast meat is humble.
- cosmin800 3y ago[flagged]
- chris-orgmenta 3y agoI found this vivid, precise writing to be extremely enjoyable to sink into.
- PoignardAzur 3y agoAsterisk magazine has much more vivid, down-to-earth writing than "bay area rationalist magazine funded by effective altruism" would evoke. One of the articles in that same issue was the one that pushed me to finally become vegetarian.
- Snow_Falls 3y agoI'm not sure I can trust a magazine that has a grammatical error in title of an article on the front page.* Now this doesn't say anything about the quality of the article itself (who doesn't make silly mistakes) but it does speak to a lack of editorial oversight. These sorts of basic mistakes do not inspire confidence. *bottom article on the front page: "Rarely is the Question Asked: Is Our Children Learning?" should be "are our children learning". ps what is the article that convinced you to go vegatarian, sounds interesting
- em-bee 3y agogiven the content of that title it sounds like an intentional pun
- aragonite 3y agoIt's a reference to this :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism#Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism#Education https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ej7ZEnjSeA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ej7ZEnjSeA
- gwern 3y agoThis is a good example of the difficulties with signaling and communication: anything which looks like an error is a 'thing you can't countersignal' (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ThhNvdBxcTYdzm69s/things-you-can-t-countersignal https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ThhNvdBxcTYdzm69s/things-you...). Snow_Falls is so contemptuous of Asterisk that he sees a blatant 'error' which 'somehow' evaded the writers and editors all this time, and assumes that this means they are that incompetent; he doesn't consider the modus tollens, that the error is deliberate and he is the one failing to understand what is a well-known GWB allusion. If he had a higher opinion of Asterisk, he might have instead checked (if he took even a second to google the title "Rarely is the Question Asked: Is Our Children Learning?", the first 5 hits all explain the allusion), or at least withheld judgment - but he didn't, so he just snarks here and gets to be embarrassed when someone politely explains the joke to him. This happens all the time in places with 'context collapse', especially on Twitter - I don't know how many times I've seen someone retweet something 'stupid' or 'obviously wrong', where actually the original tweet was a pretty amusing reference that the retweeter didn't get. (For example, if someone tweets something along the lines of 'They spent $X, for that much money, they could have given every American $Y million dollars!', others might get angry about the arithmetic being wildly wrong by multiple orders of magnitude, thereby demonstrating utter innumeracy... Because the original tweeter is making fun of a famous instance of innumeracy.) It is a particularly infuriating kind of criticism because it often is done in bad faith, due to contempt and laziness and assuming the worst possible interpretation of something one has written with great effort, and it is especially irritating to be condescended to by someone who is so ignorant compared to you that they don't even realize their ignorance. It's a pity because it makes it hard to write publicly in any way but the most boring way for the lowest common denominator, given that inevitably someone is going to come along and take your Socratic ignorance for genuine ignorance, or your playful misspelling as proof you can't even run a spellchecker, etc, and you can hardly explain every joke without vitiating them.
- m0llusk 3y agoThere are some great Tofu suppliers in America, but also a labor saving device that allows people to easily experiment with variations themselves: https://www.soymilkmaker.com/ https://www.soymilkmaker.com/ One of the problems is that, like so many things in America, tofu has taken on some silly political baggage. Among a significant share of the population, both conservative and health oriented, there is a common belief that soy is full of extrogen that will, if ingested, reduce masculine characteristics and emphasize feminine characteristics. The reality is that the phytoestrogens in soy do not have a significant effect on humans and we have an extremely large amount of data including the massive "China Study" that shows that. But the idea has taken hold and now many people are afraid to eat tofu because it will turn them into weak and unhealthy girls.
- Snow_Falls 3y agoDon't forget the anti-asian racism implicit to the belief that soy, a food eaten widely in asia, makes you weak and feminine (whatever that means). The backlash to soy is inextricably tied to old stereotypes of asians as weak and docile.
- lupusreal 3y agoSoy has long been grown in America but it isn't a traditional part of western diets and was generally considered animal feed (more so in the past than now). This isn't because Asians did eat it, but because westerners didn't in the first place.
- philwelch 3y agoNo, it isn’t. The stereotypical “soy boy” is a white vegan polyamorous hipster from a West Coast city, and most of the backlash to soy is targeted at processed foods than Asian cuisine. It’s more adjacent to the sort of right-wing hippie natural food scene that likes to slonk raw eggs than to any sort of anti-Asian racism.
- Klonoar 3y agoYeah, no, the person you’re responding to is not wrong. “Soy boy” as an insult has never been about processed foods - what are you on about?
- Decabytes 3y agoThere are plenty of people in America of Asian descent that know lots about Tofu. There are also plenty of articles about secret off menu items at Chinese restaurants, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you could get some of this Tofu there. This stuff just takes time. I remember reading a news article where someone talked about drinking bubble tea in NYC before it was popular as a kid, as a treat. Now you can get bubble tea everywhere
- Spivak 3y agoI've never been told no ordering any american-chinese dish with tofu instead of chicken at any Chinese restaurant. The best fried chicken beats the best fried tofu but your average fried tofu beats you average fried chicken so I usually get it at places I'm not super sure of.
- hardwaregeek 3y agoIf you like passionate writing about chinese food, I highly recommend Fuchsia Dunlop’s new book, Invitation to A Banquet, which goes over chinese food in remarkable detail. Each chapter is devoted to a single dish or technique and it really goes in depth.
- viewtransform 3y agoThumbs up for Fushia Dunlop - she introduced me to sichuan dan-dan noodles. My current favorite is the 'Made with Lau' channel. A retired Cantonese chef who teaches the techniques he mastered over the years in his restaurant in the US. Start with his oldest uploaded videos for the good stuff. https://www.youtube.com/@MadeWithLau https://www.youtube.com/@MadeWithLau
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoThe best meat replacer really isn't tofu, it's Seitan. It has the umami quality certain meats & cheeses have, you just need to have another bite, that I've not have had with other meat replacements. I've eaten the most delicious vegetarian chicken made of Seitan over a decade ago in a monastery in Xiamen. Still not sure why it hasn't made it's way to the West. Maybe because of the fact its basically pure gluten.
- ReactiveJelly 3y agoI agree, seitan is a lot more like meat. I prefer less-realistic replacements so even though I've enjoyed seitan I actually quit buying it. It's too convincing.
- upon_drumhead 3y agoI can buy it in my local grocery stores and numerous restaurants serve it. I feel like it has gotten to the west, but just isn’t too popular.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoYeah you can buy it, but soya is by far the most popular base for commercial replacement. In China you can buy all sorts of meat replica's based on seitan that are much tastier then current meat replacements way before beyond burger.
- Glench 3y agoMy friend perfected seitan nuggets: https://bartlebysfood.com/ https://bartlebysfood.com/
- ecshafer 3y agoThis is a nice article, but it does have some parts that seem off base. First you can walk into any chinese grocery store (in america) and get 20 kinds of tofu, thats really not an issue, and chinese restaurants (in chinatown) will sell many kinds of tofu. The other is that the author makes the mistake of over emphasizing the vegetarianism aspect (which i think some comments here also are). Many chinese dishes with tofu flavor them with meat. Outside of a temple, the vegetarian aspect isnt really important, tofu is just another dish. Tofus attachment with being a meat replacement or a vegetarian food is the major reason its not eaten more by americans.
- liveoneggs 3y agoAgreed. Tofu is just another food. Being only for vegetarians is just bad marketing. :) I have some stuff in boxes that live in the panty next to the rest of my beans and just use it whenever.
- flakiness 3y ago+1 As a Japanese, I was surprised that Tofu is almost always treated as a meat alternative in the US, even in many Chinese restaurants. Where is Mapo-tofu :face-with-rolling-eyes: But I would consider the tofu-as-meat-alternative "marking" a success, given the massive adoption compared to other Asian ingredients which are pushed to the small Asian corner of the grocery stores.
- solardev 3y agoDo you not have mapo tofu where you live? Out West it's in a lot of Chinese-ish restaurants, usually with meat, and usually done poorly (sadly). I wish I could find a good one... easy enough to make at home though.
- syntaxing 3y agoYup, even Buddhist do not eat Tofu as “meat”. They’re usually a form soy product but not exclusively tofu.
- 3y ago
- nothercastle 3y agoMost Americans including myself have no idea how to cook tofu well. If you want to market tofu you need to demo it in grocery stores, show off recipes at farmers markets or host tofu fairs. Somehow you need to show what’s possible with tofu and probably adjust it to American (bland) favor pallet
- fader 3y agoDefinitely. It's not _hard_ to cook tofu well, but it's really easy to cook it badly. One trick I've learned is when frying tofu, let it sit until you're pretty sure it's burned. Then wait at least that long again before flipping it and starting the process over. (It's really, really hard to burn tofu.) Other tricks include putting it in the freezer before cooking it or microwaving it for 30 seconds before fully cooking. Both of these help to remove water from the tofu, making it firmer and easier to work with. Tofu will pick up the flavors of whatever it's cooked with, so it's great for adding to dishes with sauces or marinades!
- flyinghamster 3y ago> Other tricks include putting it in the freezer before cooking it or microwaving it for 30 seconds before fully cooking. Both of these help to remove water from the tofu, making it firmer and easier to work with. I typically buy the extra firm variety for stir-fry, and I'll cut a corner off the package and press out the water before dicing it. I'll have to try the microwave trick next time. The "burn it" advice is on point. You really have to boil out the water before it really starts cooking.
- tills13 3y agoWhen you're frying it, how do you prevent your coating from burning e.g. if you've breaded it.
- flyinghamster 3y agoI'm not breading it (hmm, that's an idea to try!), and I use a nonstick skillet. I've found that if I keep it on the heat long enough, it will stay together when I start stirring it. I suppose I ought to get a proper wok, but the skillet works for me.
- jibbit 3y agoi commented this before and it got reddit-style piled on, so i deleted it.. but on reflection- i'm not sure why i cared, so putting it back: i was looking forward to some good tofu in tokyo (in restaurants, not shops - i was on holiday), but was surprised it was much harder to find than in america (i'm not from the USA, but have also been on holiday there).
- yumraj 3y ago> Coriander seeds, originally prohibited to distinguish Chinese Buddhists from Hindus opposite the Himalayas, are also a no-go. Huh? Never heard of this and didn’t find anything on searching online. Would love to know more..
- scheme271 3y agoThat seems a bit odd since the tibetan plateau and the Himalayas already provide a great barrier between Hindus and Chinese Buddhists. I don't think there was a lot of movement between the two based on stories like journey to west.
- yumraj 3y ago> .. the Himalayas already provide a great barrier between Hindus and Chinese Buddhists. I don't think there was a lot of movement between the two based on stories like journey to west. Not sure if you're referring to Buddhism in general or Chinese Buddhism specifically. Buddha was a Hindu by birth and was born in Lumbini, present day Nepal, so India side of the Himalayas, and spread in India before spreading out to the rest of the World. [0] From the Wikipedia: He was born in Lumbini, present-day Nepal and grew up in Kapilavastu, a town in the Ganges Plain, near the modern Nepal–India border, and he spent his life in what is now modern Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are in India. Buddhism first spread in India, when many Hindus became Buddha's followers, and then to the rest of the World. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism
- 1letterunixname 3y agoHonestly, I only use plain extra firm silken tofu in pad thai. It browns easier and stays together better when scrambled in stir-fry than regular tofu. Also, it has a more palatable texture for Western eaters. Another thing is availability. Grocery hypermarts like Whole Foods are embarrassing monocultures that lack diversity. Hell, they don't even sell basic pita bread of any kind at their flagship store in downtown Austin. WF maybe a bad example because many shoppers are more often about conspicuous consumption rather than quality, diversity, or choice and it's run by a ruthless corporation that only cares about maximizing profitability per shelf area. While Trader Joe's (Aldi Nord) at least sells pita bread, they also don't carry the variety of Asian-store-like SKUs of different forms of tofu, seaweed, or sauces. Whether a particular city can sustain a particular ethnicity or regional grocer not served by mainstream and counterculture stores requires sufficient density of demand from recent migrants and adventurous foodies to keep it going. I don't think expecting TJ's or WF's to carry many types of tofu is itself reasonable if there's not enough demand or the store is particularly small (most TJ's are relatively small). Go to almost any mainstream grocery store in America, and you will find it difficult to find a simple international ingredient like canned tahani. Most American grocery stores are provincial and so expecting them to offer different forms of tofu is several steps away from their current reality. Here's to a hope there are more ethnic alternative stores like what Pier 1 imports was.
- tracker1 3y agoMy biggest concern is the push towards attempting to legally restrict animal consumption. I can't handle legumes and have intolerances to a very broad spectrum of foods. Ruminant meats and pasture raised eggs are about the only things I can consistently eat without issue.
- bhpm 3y agoWho is pushing whom towards legally restricting animal consumption? Not sure what country you’re in. Would you mind linking an article or two about it? Doesn’t matter what language it’s in. I’m interested in learning more.
- tracker1 3y agoHaven't seen legislation on consumption. But efforts to restrict farming. I think it was the Netherlands that pushed this in the last year or so. The result is roughly the same. There have also been efforts to tax "bad for you foods" particularly sugar. Where meat consumption has been villified and is absolutely a target.
- j7ake 3y agoI think the analogy of tofu is that it is the “cheese” of Chinese people. This analogy captures a bit of variety found in both cheese and tofu.
- throwaway2037 3y agoThe article failed to mention tempeh. Yes, not exactly tofu, but belongs in the same category. I would describe it as a cross between "block of classic tofu" and Japanese natto. It is probably much harder to find in the US. Probably, you can find it in Los Angeles where there is a biggish overseas Indo community.
- ac29 3y agoTempeh is widely available in the US, at least in California. I cant think of a grocery store that doesnt have it.
- throwaway2037 3y agoWow, since when? I lived there many years ago and I didn't see tempeh. However, silk and cotton tofu was common in my supermarkets.
- throwaway2037 3y agoPersonal note: I don't like Changsha-style stinky tofu as much as the soft stinky tofu in a spicy broth found in Taipei, Taiwan night markets. Honestly, it smells like dirty, sweating socks when you walk past on the street, but if you pinch your nose, holy shit the broth plus stinky tofu is an amazing combo. Also, there is some stinky tofu in Taiwan that could kill a small horse. You can find YouTube videos of people trying to eat it.
- throwaway2037 3y agoI thought of one more: He didn't mention five spice tofu -- make it 21!. That stuff is delicious. It is a great snack (plain -- no cooking required) when drinking with friends.
- Always_Anon 3y ago[flagged]
- bhpm 3y agoWhy? Current scientific evidence does not support the idea that soy is harmful to males. Instead, it suggests that moderate soy consumption can be a healthy part of a balanced diet.
- Always_Anon 3y ago>Current scientific evidence does not support the idea that soy is harmful to males. Not true: "Feminizing effect of phytoestrogens and soy products may be subtle, detectable only statistically in large populations; it can be of particular importance for children and adolescents." [0] Jury is still out on soy. If you've had to deal with the latest league of junior devs, it makes sense why they're called "soydevs." [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270274/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270274/
- bhpm 3y agoMaybe your company should stop hiring children and adolescents.
- Always_Anon 3y ago[dead]
- throwaway0x4 3y ago[flagged]
- mike50 3y agoOh good another "quirky" white American discovers China article. So many things I can pick on but mostly how some one from LA never went to the bare minimum effort of walking through a CHAIN Asian grocery store and just looking at the tofu section.